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Jo Askham

About Me

As a doula or birth attendant I will develop a relationship with you and your partner during pregnancy. I will help you to conceptualise your ideal birth and to develop your birth plan. During labour I will help to maintain the best birthing environment that you need to enhance the process of your labour. I will support you physically, emotionally and help you to work through decisions that may need to be made during the journey. I will also assist partners to give them the confidence to support the pregnancy and birth process. My overall aim is to serve and protect your families needs in order to achieve the best possible birth experience and outcome for you.

I will focus exclusively on your current beliefs about birth and help you with information to extend, support, build and ground these informed beliefs. We will also work with these beliefs and how best to support them in the current birthing options offered in Melbourne.

I support families in any setting they are wishing to give birth, which includes supporting you at home before transferring to your intended setting. About MeI have had three babies of my own whose arrivals took me on a journey through a hospital birth and the process of two planned home births. After a fully managed pregnancy and birth in the United States, I knew there must be some other way to better the 'production-line' birth experience.

My research lead to a group called 'Doulas of North America' (DONA) where I commenced my initial doula training in 2001. My continued passion to help enhance the birth experience made me realise that a woman needs to feel trust in her body and with the natural ability we have to give birth, but also to feel well supported in the time leading to this event and during it's actual process.

As a doula for since 2002, I have gained experience with home, hospitals and birth centres, family and sibling involvement, single mothers, same sex couples, a variety of ethnic backgrounds, inductions and c-sections. I have also been privileged to have sat a year in Rhea Dempsey's Birthing Wisdom - Birth Attendant circle and completed the online 'Optimum Birth' training.

All of the above and continued professional development training, help me to feel confident to empower birthing families to have the best birth possible, but mostly I work with individual situations, personal connections and intuition to get to this achieved outcome.

For more information and to view my full website (incl. Packages, testimonial, photos and birthstories)please visit: